Blink
by m3ow-chan
Summary: Karupin becomes human. [RyoKaru]
1. It will always be the juice's fault

A/N: This is my first story. I've seen a few human Karupin/Ryoma fics, but I don't think they've been continued, so I decided to write one. The title will make more sense in later chapters, if I ever get that far…

Blink

By m3ow-chan

Chapter 1- It will always be the juice's fault.

Karupin was a cat.

Yes, _was_.

It had started out a nice day, watching Ryoma as he woke up and prepared for school. Karupin had said his goodbyes to him and went to bother Oyaji (or so Ryoma called him) into playing with him.

Karupin was walking around to the back of the temple when, to his surprise, some crazy messy haired kid came leaping through the bushes, followed by an crazy silver haired kid that was chasing him shouting something or other about 'taking his punishment like a man'.

The so-called 'punishment' was a cup full of some foul-looking liquid. And it just was his luck (or lack there-of) that the crazy white haired kid just _had _to trip then and splash the liquid all over him.

Karupin wasn't happy. It was gross and slimy and Ryoma would definitely give him a bath for this no matter what. Karupin disliked baths a lot. Then it got _even_ worse. The slimy stuff started to _glow_. No matter how many weird things Karupin had seen, he knew that things like _juice_ were not supposed to glow. It was starting to burn his fur when his whole body tingled and then...

Kirihara stopped in mid-run, and Niou got off of the ground, looking in the direction the juice had landed. It looked like their jaws weren't going to be picked up from the ground anytime soon.

:3

Ryoma was annoyed. So far today one of his shoelaces broke, he lost an assignment for English (Which was bad because even though he already could speak it fluently, the teacher had said that it didn't excuse him from not doing his homework. Then he made him stay after class and told him to clean the chalkboard erasers.), all _three_ of his rackets had snapped strings, and practice hadn't even started yet.

He briefly wondered if Arai-sempai and his friends had decided the 'put the freshmen in their place' thing again, but considering the number of laps they would have to run for destroying someone's property wasn't exactly worth it. Besides, Arai-sempai wasn't stupid enough to get humiliated by him a second time. At least Ryoma hoped he wasn't.

He didn't want to tell Tezuka-Buchou yet, because last time he did, he had to run to the racket stringer with weights on him and Ryoma did not feel like running that far again, especially since Inui-sempai had added another 2 kg to their training schedule, making it to 12 kg, surpassing the intended 10 kg already.

While Ryoma was pondering his other choices-- if there were any-- Momo-sempai and Eiji-sempai had wondered why he wasn't on the courts yet, and decided to interrogate (attack) him.

"Oi, Echizen! Why aren't you practicing?" said Momo-sempai as he put him in a headlock. Ow. Momo-sempai was heavy. Plus, it cut off his air supply.

"Yeah, O'chibi! If you don't hurry you'll have to run laps, nya!" said a way-to-over-energetic Eiji-sempai as he squeezed whatever amount of air that was left in him.

"Let go sempai!" He tried to say as best as he could. Which was a great feat, since he had no air and was trapped under his sempai.

Oishi was the next to come into the locker room. He knew he should have tried to stop Momoshiro and Eiji when they had volunteered to look for Echizen, as they were more prone to squeezing the life out of the freshman than actually getting him to places in time. Ah, there were they now, doing exactly as he thought--no, _knew_, they would.

Oishi sighed and prepared to deal with them.

:3

Back at the Echizen household, this was the current scene:

"Ahhhh! Niou-sempai, that--that _thing_ Yagyuu-sempai made, i--it...the cat! It, ---"

"Whoa. That, ... I don't believe it, how--"

"Hey, what are you kids shouting abou--...Waahh!? What happened here?"

"It, the juice, and the cat, it--"

"What? Oi, brat, are you seishounen's cat?"

Karupin looked at his paws—no--hands, these things were called hands, and at the rest of the screaming humans. He never imagined _this_ happening, or that it was even possible in the first place. He didn't think it was, actually.

He opened his mouth.

"Mrowrow..." he said. Hnm, a humans' mouth was much different. Maybe if he did this--

"Yes," he tried. It wasn't that hard, actually, just different.

Opps, maybe he shouldn't have done that. There was more screaming now, and it was really hurting his ears. Oh, good his ears were still there. He moved his hand down his back (cool, he couldn't do that when he was a cat) until he felt the line of fur. His tail was there too. Good.

Oyaji stopped screaming and grabbed all three of them and shoved them into the house (somehow), shouting at him to get some clothes while throwing him a towel for the juice. Oh, so that's why he was so cold. His fur wasn't there anymore. Karupin sighed. He had liked his fur. He wandered into Ryoma's room and into the closet. He had remember there being clothes in there...

:3

After prying Momoshiro and Eiji off of Echizen, Oishi asked him what was wrong.

"My racket stings broke." Echizen said, after gulping in some air.

"Your racket strings? All of them?" Oishi questioned.

"Usu…" said Echizen disheartened. Or it could have just been his normal emotionless voice. It was hard to tell, really...

"That's strange, and it's only the beginning of practice too...Ah, what if something bad happened! That would be bad! Has anything else bad been happening?" Oishi worried.

"My shoelaces broke and I lost a homework assignment earlier..." Ryoma started.

"Wah!!? That's bad, Echizen, real bad!" shouted Momoshiro.

"Yeah! O'chibi, you should call your family right now! Broken shoelaces mean something bad happened to them! What if they were in an accident…or DIED??"

"Eiji, don 't say that! They wouldn't be dead, would they? Ahh, this is bad!"

"But Oishi, it could happen--"

"I know, but--"

"Wahh, poor O'chibi-chan!!"

"Eiji, we haven't confirmed anything yet, --"

"Hey, where did Echizen go?" Momoshiro interrupted them.

"Huh? O'chibi-chan? Where did you go O'chibi?"

;3

"Wait, say that again?" demanded one Nanjirou Echizen.

"Well, you see, Yanagi-sempai had heard from Seigaku's Sada-something--"

"It was Sadaharu, Kirihara. Inui Sadaharu."

"Right, him. Well, he heard from him that he was making juices for his team, so Yanagi-sempai started to make juices too, and gave them out for punishment if we lost matches--"

"And Kirihara here lost pathetically to Sanada, of course, so--"

"Hey, don't make it sound like I lost by that much!"

"But you did! 6-1 if I remember correctly--"

"I was having an off day!"

"Of _course_ you were..."

Karupin was listening to their (almost completely pointless) conversation from upstairs. He had somewhat figured out how to put on clothes, and now had on Ryoma's normal ensemble of t-shirt and shorts. When he had finished, he went back downstairs. It was harder going down the stairs on all fours. He scowled. He would have to get Ryoma to help him with the two-legged walking thing the humans did. He stood (on fours) at the kitchen door. It wasn't that he minded interrupting their talk, after all he was Ryoma's cat. Any semblance of manners he could have had was more than likely gone. He just didn't want to go closer to the loud noises that would hurt his ears. Like Ryoma (and just cats in general), he liked his silence. But it didn't really matter since they spotted them the next instance anyways and dragged him in.

Karupin sighed again. He would have to join their pointless conversation now. At least Ryoma was coming home soon...

:3

Back at the school grounds, Ryoma gave a sigh of relief. Tezuka-Buchou had been perplexed as he was with the broken rackets (even if he didn't show it) and hadn't sent him to the stingers since practice was going to be short that day anyways. The bad part was that he had been assigned 20 laps for being late to practice. It wasn't his fault this time even. Momo-sempai and Eiji-sempai had held him up.

He was on the 16th lap when Oishi, Kikumaru, and Momoshiro finally found him. Ryoma did not know why it took them so long to find him, and wouldn't care either if they didn't come over and try to attack him again. While running.

"Hoi, O'chibi got in trouble with Tezuka, nya?" said Eiji as he tried to hug him somehow while he was running. It was rather uncomfortable, since one: his feet were scraping against Eiji-sempai's, which was annoying, and two: Eiji-sempai was hugging him.

"Wanna go for burgers after practice, Echizen? It'll be sempai's treat!" suggested Momoshiro.

"Yeah! --Hey wait! Momo-chin, that's not fair! You can't do this to your sempai!" Kikumaru jumped onto his other kohai. "I know! Lets make Oishi pay!"

"Wha...? Eiji, I never agreed to that! Besides, I have homework!" and that he had heard of his kouhai's vigorous appetites and didn't want to waste his allowance on their "snacks".

"Oh, come on Oishi! We all have homework! Just this once! I'll even pay for some of it!" _Some..._

"Fine, but just this once..."

"Yahoo! Oiishi's coming! What about you, O'chibi?"

"Hey! What about me, Eiji-sempai?"

"What about you Momo?" Eiji grinned.

"Ah, so cruel Eiji-sempai, so cruel..." Momo feigned.

"AH! O'chibi left _again_! Hurry Momo, Oishi! We have to go find him!" Kikumaru exclaimed as they went to chase after the freshman once again...

:3

Ryoma had left practice after his laps. For once he was glad for his sempai's weird conversations, as

they distracted them long enough for him to get away. He walked to the front door.

"Taidama!" He shouted, putting down his tennis bag and taking off his shoes.

"Okaeri Ryoma!" He heard a voice say. Hm, that was weird... Ryoma was sure he recognized this voice, but...

"Oof." He said as he was jumped on by...

"K--Karupin??" His eyes widened. What had…?

He picked up Karupin as best as he could, which was a lot harder since Karupin was nearly his size now. Okay. There had to be an explanation for this. (Not reasonable explanation because there was no way this was reasonable.)

Ryoma walked to the room, the one he had seen Karupin come out of. Karupin's head was tucked over his shoulder, with his arms around his neck. Karupin found it more comfortable this way, now that he was bigger. He had somehow even tucked his feet to his chest so Ryoma could some-what hold him how he did before, when he was a cat.

When Ryoma went through the door only two words were on his mind.

_"Oh no."_

----------------------------------

…:3


	2. Echizen's house

A/N: Here's chapter two! I think I can update once or twice every weekend, depending on how much homework I have… I hope I'm keeping them in character…

Blink

By m3ow-chan

Chapter 2- Echizen's house

It was while running off the courts dragging Momoshiro and Oishi when Eiji realized he had no idea where Echizen was.

"Hoi, Momo! Did you see where O'chibi went?"

"Um, sorry Eiji-sempai..." Momo said abashedly, hand behind his head, "...I wasn't really paying attention..."

"I think he went home, Eiji..." said Oishi.

"Thanks Oiishi! I knew I should have asked you before Momo-chin!" Eiji said, now bounding off toward Echizen's house. Dragging Oishi of course. Momo didn't matter as much.

"Hey!" shouted Momoshiro, chasing after Eiji. "Wait for me!"

:3

'I should have really expected this...' thought Ryoma as he stood at the door to the living room.

Sitting there in all their glory was the Rikkai regulars, or at least some of them. Kirihara, Niou, and Yanagi. Inui-sempai was there too. That wasn't the part that freaked him out though. It was the fact that they were playing monopoly. With Oyaji.

Ryoma was a bit taken back. He didn't even know they had a monopoly board. He watched them for a moment, eyes blank. He didn't think he could even attempt to salvage the situation. They obviously knew who his Oyaji was, if the two data players there were any indication.

Inui, being the first to notice him at the door, put down his dog piece (inu-Inui. Hahaha). Which Niou promptly stole and moved it discretely back to the starting line.

"Echizen." Inui nodded to him. "I've seen you've found out about the cat." Then he pulled out his notebook and started scribbling. "Interesting. Echizen seems more shocked to see us at his house then that his cat was turned human. Ii data..."

Niou was currently trying to out-cheat Nanjirou. Kirihara watched in interest, and was moving a few more of his red houses onto the spaces while they while they fought over money. Yanagi, of course, had noticed the cheating and was pretty sure Inui had too. It didn't matter, since they had manage to send the other players to jail over three times each already.

Ryoma, being smart, decided that it wasn't Inui's fault for once. There were too many random Rikkai players here for that to make sense. He turned to the other data player. Ryoma had forgotten his name but he remembered him as one of Rikkai's three monsters.

"You. What did you do Karupin?" He demanded.

Yanagi frowned. He was actually quite disappointed that his juice had done this while Inui's had actually helped Seigaku's performance (no matter how bad it tasted). It was strange though; he hadn't put anything unusual enough to cause... this. He went over the ingredients in his mind. Some vegetables, fruits, insects... there was really nothing all that different than Inui's ingredients.

Yanagi also considered the possibility that some foreign substance had come in contact with the juice. Niou and Akaya had run quite a distance, and god knows they weren't careful with it. He was actually quite surprised that Niou had gotten this far without spilling the drink.

That was another problem. What if some other creature had come in contact with it? Even Yanagi would be surprised if he saw some half-bug, half-human creature flying around. It would be very bad.

"Nothing. It was Masaharu-kun that spilled the juice. " Said Yanagi after a second, naturally having had processed his thoughts above normal human speed.

Niou turned around at his name, which let Nanjirou snatch the bill out of his hands. "Mada mada dana," He chortled, happily clutching it and waved to Ryoma. "Oi, so you're finally home, seishounen? Come join us! I'll beat you flat!"

"Baka Oyaji..." Ryoma mumbled, and stormed out of the room. He wasn't getting any answers, none that he hadn't figured out already anyways. Besides, Karupin had fallen asleep. Ryoma wouldn't argue with them if it meant waking him up...

:3

While Eiji dragged Oishi and Momo to Echizen's house, they met up with a weird sight. Fuji and Kaidoh, jogging together. It was strange, because Kaidoh rarely hung out with anyone, and Fuji was never seen doing any extra training outside practice. Eiji suspected that Fuji did train, just when no one else was watching. How else could he have mastered the triple counters?

Fuji, (spotting them before Eiji could jump on him and Kaidoh) had waved hello and stopped his run. Kaidoh, noticing his sempai stop, turned around and wondered if he could leave without him. Kaidoh didn't want to deal with Momoshiro or an extra-hyped up Kikumaru.

Fuji had just explained that Kaidoh had asked him for help with his English, seeing that he was getting lower marks than usual and he didn't want to go to his kouhai like he was sure Momoshiro did (and that his Inui-sempai had left earlier, saying he had previous appointments so he couldn't tutor Kaidoh today.)

After hearing that they were going to Echizen's house, Fuji invited himself and Kaidoh. "Echizen-kun should be able to help you with English better than me, since he lived in America most of his life after all..." was what Fuji had said when he saw the indecisive (or distressed) face Kaidoh had on.

Thus the five of them started towards Ryoma's house.

:3

Ryoma had somehow managed to carry Karupin upstairs. It was harder than before, since their weight difference was now close to none. He was glad he had taken of his weights beforehand or otherwise it would make carrying Karupin a lot harder. As strong as he was from tennis, carrying another person was still annoying, especially up the stairs. Ryoma didn't think he would do this for anyone else.

He had placed Karupin in his bed and covered him with the blankets. Ryoma stared at him for a while, noting the differences between cat-Karupin and human-Karupin. There really weren't that many, just that Karupin had a human form now. He still had his cat ears and tail, Ryoma noted. What was a bit strange was that the bangs hanging in front of Karupin's face were brown at the tips, like it was trying to mimic the cat markings.

Ryoma held up one of Karupin's arms for inspection. The small, fine hairs that were on his arm were white, while the ones closer to his hands were brown. He took a looked at Karupin's nails, noticing how they were slightly longer than average and were stronger than his. _'Claws'_ he thought. He put Karupin's hand back down and went back to staring at his face.

He remembered from before that Karupin's eyes were still blue. He wondered if Karupin could see more colors now, since he had read in a book that cats were red-green color blind, meaning they saw red, orange and yellow as green, and the other colors as blue.

Karupin's hair was slightly longer than his, reaching a little past his neck. That was normal though, since Karupin was a longhaired Himalayan and naturally had longer fur than other cats. Ryoma was glad it wasn't too long though, because if it were, it would disrupt his tennis.

Ryoma paused at that thought. Karupin could play tennis now, or at least know the rules for it. He had been living with tennis manics his whole life, after all. That would be interesting, to see him play. They would have to do that sometime.

He looked under Karupin's hair, seeing that his eyebrows were a brown color also. Ryoma lowered his eyes to his mouth, which was slightly open. He saw a glint of fangs, but only on the canine teeth. Karupin had spoken human language also. Ryoma wasn't too surprised by this; he always knew the cat was smart. Besides, it wasn't like he couldn't talk to Karupin before.

Ryoma yawned. Watching Karupin had put him in a hazy state of mind for some reason. Maybe he could take a little nap; it wasn't like he wanted to go downstairs anyways...

:3

Eiji, Oishi, Momoshiro, Kaidoh, and Fuji had finally arrived at Echizen's house. It didn't take all that long surprisingly; just a minor squabble over where Echizen lived from Momo and Kaidoh, which ended when Momo had said, " And how would you know where the brat lives, Mamushi?"

Kaidoh had hissed at that; there was no way he could say that he had purposely changed his jogging route so he could pass by Echizen's house to play with his cat. He decided to ignore the Peach-butt instead.

They were greeted by...Inui. Which was more of a shock than seeing Kaidoh with Fuji. Why would Inui be at the Echizen house? He was definitely not high in the list of Ryoma's favorite sempai's. Inui had said Nanako-san was currently doing something else, being the reason she didn't come to the door.

Nanako-san had come home a few hours earlier. Noticing the Rikkai players--and how late it was, she told them that they would miss the last bus of the day if they didn't leave soon, but not before they made them clean up all the monopoly pieces. Niou had protested, saying that they weren't done with their game yet, which Yanagi had pointed out that the board was covered with red pieces and that Kirihara had stolen the rest of their money.

Kirihara had smiled sheepishly. Niou had hit him on the head, which broke them off into a squabble. Yanagi had sighed and cleaned up the pieces. Then grabbing the back of their shirts, he thanked the Echizen's for letting them stay at their house, and told Inui that they would have to consult the data some other time.

Nanako had waved them goodbye before pushing her uncle into another room, saying, "You know Ryoma-san doesn't like you meeting his friends, Oji-san!" leaving Inui alone. He was about to get up and take a look around the Echizen household (ii data), when he heard the doorbell ring.

Seeing half of Seigaku's regulars there, he invited them inside (ignoring the fact that it wasn't his house). He was in the middle of explaining why he was there, when Nanako-san appeared with some tea and cakes for them. Inui briefly wondered what happened to Nanjirou, but decided it didn't matter.

Nanako listened to the rest of Inui's explanation about what happened, and told them Ryoma was most likely upstairs. She was a bit surprised at what happened. "I'll have to fix an extra plate of dinner from now on..." she said.

"Are you staying here?" she asked. "If you are, you should call your parents...it's getting a bit late, I wouldn't want them to worry..."

Eiji had panicked a bit, after seeing the time.

"You don't have to worry, Eiji. I already called both our families." Oishi had said.

"Unya! Oiishi's always so thoughtful!" A happy Kikumaru latched onto Oishi, not noticing the blush on his partner's face.

Kaidoh had a test tomorrow, so he couldn't stay. He asked Inui if he was leaving, since he still needed help on his English, and Fuji's house was a bit far from Kaidoh's to jog that far together. Inui said yes.

Fuji had asked Kaidoh if he wanted to see the human-Karupin first. Kaidoh had wondered if Fuji noticed his interactions with Echizen's cat. Fuji was a tensai after all...

Kaidoh had agreed; he did want to see Karupin. He pondered for a moment. What if Karupin told them that Kaidoh likes to play with him? His eyes widened. He hoped not, that would surely ruin his reputation, and the teasing from Momoshiro would never stop.

Momoshiro, just having realized he had the same test tomorrow, panicked for a moment. He had forgotten to study again. He couldn't get Echizen to help him, not with all the people that were likely to tease him about it here (besides Oishi-sempai, of course.) He said that he would have to go home soon too.

They went up the stairs, following Nanako. They arrived at Ryoma's door, and she knocked.

"Ryoma-san! Your friends are here!" she said. The door didn't move. Momo briefly wondered if Echizen was ignoring them on purpose. Nanako tried the doorknob. If Ryoma-san didn't want them in his room, he would've locked it.

The door creaked open. Eiji came charging forward, always looking for a chance to glomp his favorite kouhai.

"O'chibi!" He stopped when he was in front of the bed.

"What's wrong, Eiji?" Oishi asked, seeing that Eiji wasn't jumping onto Echizen.

"Shh!" Eiji put a finger to his mouth. "Look!" he whispered. "Isn't that so kawaii?"

Oishi and the others looked over Eiji's shoulders. There was Echizen and whom he suspected was Karupin, asleep. Echizen was curled around Karupin in a loose hug, with Karupin's head snuggled under his neck. It made a really cute scene indeed.

Fuji took out his cell phone and snapped a picture, wishing he had the foresight to bring his camera that day. Eiji, hearing the soft 'click' it made, turned around and looked at the picture Fuji took.

"Send it to me, nya?" he whispered.

"Of course."

Inui scribbled more stuff into his notebook while Nanako shook them lightly. It wouldn't be good if they missed dinner after all...

Momo and Kaidoh watched as Ryoma rolled over, mumbling something in his sleep. Not calculating how big Karupin was now promptly sent him falling off the bed.

Noticing the small sound Karupin made at hitting the floor, Ryoma blearily sat up and slowly opened his eyes. His and Karupin's met for a second before they both let out a yawn.

Not noticing his sempai surrounding them, he picked Karupin up and walked out of his bedroom. They stared in shock for a while, before Inui was heard mumbling again.

"Echizen's strength has increased a lot recently to be able to carry another person right after waking up...ii data"

--------------------------------

:3

A/N: inu: dog

Tell me if any of the other Japanese words confused you, okay? I don't mind putting translations at the end.

Does anyone know what Yanagi calls Niou? Thanks!

Edit: Sorry if it sent an alert more than once. I'm still trying to get used to editing. I corrected some mistakes; please tell me if you see anymore.


	3. Dinner

A/N: I'm so glad people like this story! I felt really nervous posting things... It's true that getting reviews makes you want to write more though… here's another chapter!

Disclaimer (how did I forget this? This includes the before chapters too): I don't own Prince of Tennis.

Blink

By m3ow-chan

Chapter 3- Dinner

After getting over the initial shock of seeing Echizen leaving them to go downstairs, they followed quickly after. It was amazing that they didn't break the doorway in the process. Seeing Echizen carry Karupin was alarming enough, but seeing a sleepy Echizen carry a sleepy Karupin with both of them swaying on the steps looking like they'd fall off at any moment... they held their breath until he reached the last step and watched as he padded softly into the kitchen.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Momoshiro said, "That Echizen, always making his sempai worry. He shouldn't do that, no he shouldn't."

"Fsshh." Kaidoh said in rare agreement.

:3

In the kitchen, Ryoma put Karupin down and reached into the cupboard for some cat food. He had found some, tuna flavored, when he remembered that Karupin wasn't a cat anymore and probably shouldn't eat cat food. Turning around to see Karupin's bright eyes staring at the package and sitting eagerly in front of his food dish… Ryoma decided it didn't matter and poured some in.

Karupin eagerly dug in, or at least tried to, before realizing that eating with a human face cat-style was really messy. His hair kept falling in and it was getting all over his face. Noticing this, Ryoma went to get a spoon for him. He was opening random drawers (he forgot where they were), when his sempai-tachi and Nanako walked in.

Nanako immediately scolded him when she saw what he had done, saying that Karupin shouldn't have to eat cat food now that he was human. She took away Karupin's food, and started to prepare dinner. Oishi decided to help her with it, considering how late it was.

"...But I wanted to eat it..." said Karupin. Which shocked everyone... besides Ryoma, of course.

"Y-you can _talk_?" Momo said as if it were the most amazing thing he had ever seen. Which it really shouldn't have been, considering the almost impossible law-defying tennis moves he saw on a regular basis.

"Ii data...I wasn't informed of this..." Inui scribbled rapidly into his notebook. "It's amazing for a cat to have mastered this level of human speech..."

Fuji glanced over at Ryoma. "Saa...but it's to be expected, since it is Echizen-kun's cat, ne?"

"Che."

"T-That's _so_ cool!!" Eiji shouted, jumping on Karupin. Karupin flinched when he felt Kikumaru land on him. So this was the reason Ryoma always smelled like strange people...

"So cool, O'chibi-number-three!" Eiji said, squeezing the air out of him. "Like out of some anime!"

"Eiji-sempai, stop that!" Ryoma said, yanking Karupin away from Eiji.

"O'chibi-number-three?" asked Momoshiro warily.

"Yep! There's Echizen-chan, who's O'chibi; Dan-chan is number two, so Neko-chan should be O'chibi-number-three!"

"Saa, wouldn't it be easier just to call him Neko-chan, Eiji?"

"Hmm, I guess so...fine, Neko-chan then!" Eiji jumped up, pointing a determined finger at Karupin.

_'Maybe I shouldn't have spoken...'_ Karupin thought as he watched Ryoma glare at his sempai. It was becoming pretty annoying, with all these random people coming in and out of the house. Karupin hadn't anticipated this, though he supposed it was better than humans in white cloaks dragging him to some strange place and poking stuff at him, like he saw in that movie once...

Karupin sighed and stood up on his hind legs, still a bit unsteady, and reached for the food on the counter. He was hungry; no one had fed him all day! What was wrong with these humans? He scooped up some with his hand (those things were really useful) and brought that to his mouth.

A strange foreign flavor assaulted him. What was this taste? He noticed it earlier, that some of his senses were different now. He shifted through his memories. He was sure it was written in a cat book Ryoma had in his room...

"Sweet!" _That's_ what it was... he had read it in a book once, when there was nothing better to do. It was confusing at first, with the strange symbols, but Ryoma must have noticed what he was trying to do (he was smart like that), and had started to read his books out loud with Karupin looking over his head. He caught on soon after that.

"Sweet? What does that have to do with anything, Neko-chan?" said Eiji over his shoulder. "And why do you want to eat this so much? Does it taste good?" Eiji took a piece out of the bowl and popped it into his mouth. The rest of the group stared at him strangely.

"Cat's can't taste sweet things." Ryoma finally said after a moment of thinking.

"Wha? They can't? You've been missing out on a lot, Neko-chan! So many yummy things, like ice cream and chocolate and--"

"We're not feeding Karupin chocolate, Eiji-sempai." Ryoma ground out. "At least not until we're sure he won't get sick from it."

"Hm…we'll have to study Karupin a bit more before it can be discerned if he can eat chocolate. He still seems to have many cat traits and--"

"You are not going to 'study' Karupin, Inui-sempai."

"You've mistaken my intentions, Echizen, I wouldn't think of harming your cat--"

"You better not." Ryoma glared.

"...Um, Eiji-sempai? How did the cat food taste?" Momo asked, breaking the tense atmosphere.

"It wasn't as bad as I thought, nya! Sort of greasy and flavorless, but not too bad."

"...If it was greasy and flavorless, then why would it taste good?"

"Think of it as a fish-burger, Momo! If you took away the flavor from that, would you still eat it?"

"Well, yeah, but that's a burger, not cat food." Momo argued.

"Well--"

The droning of Inui's voice cut off Eiji's reply. "Note to self: Look up information about cats. This could prove to help--"

"Weren't you and Kaidoh leaving, Inui-sempai?" Ryoma said. Inui-sempai was getting really annoying.

"Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me, Echizen. Let's go, Kaidoh." Inui said, not noticing the hostility in Echizen's voice. Either it was that or he ignored it.

"Fsshh…" Kaidoh said as he and Inui went to the door. Not forgetting his manners, he bowed and said: "Thank you for having us, Nanako-san."

"Saa... Momoshiro was leaving too, wasn't he?" Fuji said thoughtfully, looking at the second year.

Momo's head snapped up. "Oh yeah! Bye Echizen, sempai-tachi, Nanako-san!" he said, running out the door. "Ahh! My bike's still at school!" was the last thing they heard from him…

:3

It settled down a bit after that. Eiji joined Oishi and Nanako in the kitchen to help them with the cooking. Fuji had wanted to help too, but Eiji pushed him out of the kitchen, saying something about his weird tastes. He gave one of his fake sighs ("I'm hurt, Eiji.") and followed Karupin, who had gone outside after his food was taken away again.

Then Nanjirou came out wherever he was hiding and challenged Ryoma to a match. Fuji recognized him as the crazy store manager from the time they went to the beach.

"So he's actually your father, Echizen-kun?" Fuji laughed behind his hand, ignoring Ryoma's glare. Their personalities were so different, Fuji noted. Echizen-kun was antisocial, and Echizen-san was loud. He reminded Fuji of Momoshiro, actually. He thought it was amusing that Momo was one of Ryoma's closest friends, while he seemed to detest his father.

"Are you going to watch the match, Karupin-kun?" Fuji asked Karupin, seeing that he was currently pawing at a tennis ball. He discretely took another picture. Karupin's ear still twitched, hearing the small sound.

"I don't have to. It always ends the same anyways." Karupin looked at Fuji, trying to figure out where the sound came from. He gave up and went back to chasing the tennis ball.

"Saa... It makes me wonder..." Fuji smiled, turning to watch the match. Karupin had likely only seen matches of people with great skill, ones like the Echizens' were playing and pros' on television. Karupin didn't seem the type to wander out of the house a lot, considering how Ryoma acted that time he did. He wondered if Karupin even knew that Ryoma was a good player, considering he never saw the freshman in any matches outside of the ones he had with Nanjirou. It would be ironic if he didn't; the one being closest to Ryoma being the only one to not notice how great he was at tennis.

Fuji turned his attention back to the match. It was... different. Not stunning or beautiful, like how he was use to seeing Echizen's matches played. Nanjirou didn't even have to try his hardest to beat Ryoma 6-0. Fuji was amazed. Echizen-kun was one of the few people to give him a challenge, and here he was beaten so easily.

While Ryoma had pulled out every trick he had short of the state of self-consciousness, Nanjirou had just played a normal tennis--which was quite amazing because he returned every shot without developing some elaborate counter. It had reminded him of Tezuka's style of playing, especially when he saw him use the zone. He laughed a little at that, Nanjirou's personality was even farther from Tezuka's than that of his son's.

Another thing Fuji thought was that if he were beaten so soundly in tennis like this all the time, he would have given up on it a long time ago. It just seemed to encourage Ryoma though, _"We'll only be satisfied if we defeat you at your own game."_ he remembered Echizen saying that time, before the doubles match he played with Momoshiro. '_It must be true here too',_ Fuji thought. It would be an amazing match to watch when the Echizens became equals. When--not if--because there was no doubt in his mind that Ryoma would surpass his father one day. Fuji just hoped that he would be there to see it.

:3

Dinner was surprisingly quiet. Nanako had forced Nanjirou to eat in the other room, not wanting him to embarrass Ryoma in front of his friends. Kikumaru and Fuji watched in amusement as Ryoma taught Karupin to use chopsticks. Karupin, still not use to having thumbs, was having quite a hard time. Ryoma, instead of being annoyed at him like he would be at anyone else, just kept instructing him how to hold them. He got the hang of it after a while, and now was happily clicking them together.

"You need to chew more than that, Karupin." Oishi said after a moment of watching him. "You're not a cat anymore, you could choke or get indigestion if you don't chew enough!"

"...I need to chew this?" Karupin stared at his rice. The little white grains covered in sauce already looked small enough to him...

"Yes!" Oishi nodded. "I know it may look like it doesn't need to be chewed, but it does!"

Karupin frowned. "Don't want to." He never chewed his food this much before, so why would he have to do it now? It didn't make sense to him. Humans were bigger than cats, meaning they should be able to chew even less...

"Chew your food, Karupin..." Ryoma sighed. Oishi-sempai wouldn't give up about these sorts of things. That's how he got the name "Mother of Seigaku", after all.

"Fine..." Karupin said. Oishi was taken back. Fuji and Eiji snickered to themselves.

Seeing the confused look on Karupin's face at their laughs, Eiji elaborated. "Oishi was ignored while Neko-chan listened to O'chibi-chan so easily, nya!"

"That's because Ryoma's right about a lot of things..." Karupin tilted his head towards Ryoma. "It's good to listen to him..."

"Oh? Shouldn't you listen to your sempai too?" Fuji argued.

"You're not my sempai... besides, sempai aren't always right."

"O'chibi's not always right either! What about... um..." Eiji racked his brain for a time Echizen was wrong about something. He couldn't find one. Karupin and Ryoma smirked across the table.

"Fine. Maybe he is always right." Eiji pouted. "But that doesn't mean you should ignore Oishi!" He wrapped his arms around Oishi for good measure.

"I think you're giving Oishi-sempai enough attention by yourself, Eiji-sempai..." Ryoma drawled.

"Hmph."

"Here's the tea!" Nanako said as walked into the room. "Sorry it took so long, the stove stopped working."

"That's alright. Thank you for the tea, Nanako-san." Fuji took a sip as Nanako sat down.

"Oh my! You have such good manners...Ryoma, you should learn something from him."

"...No."

"Tadaima!" came a voice from down the hall.

"Oh, Oba-san's home! Okaeri!" Nanako sat up again to great her aunt.

"Aren't you going to welcome your mom home, O'chibi?"

"She'll be here in a minute..."

"But it's still good to welcome your family members home!"

Rinko walked into the room, taking note of the extra people in there. Her eyes drifted to the person sitting next to Ryoma. That looked like…

"Karupin?" she asked, "What happened?"

Eiji jumped up, he was eager for a turn to explain the story. Rinko sat down on the other side of Karupin, taking things a lot better than Nanjirou did. Fuji watched her take in the story. She seemed a lot calmer than Nanjirou, simply nodding to parts in Eiji's explanation instead of being shocked. Ryoma must have gotten most of his personality from her.

Fuji wondered briefly which side of the family Ryoma had gotten his hair color from. It was an interesting emerald black, while both his parent's had brownish hair. It was an unusual color for hair, comparable to his eyes that burned a golden hazel.

They were almost finished with dinner when Eiji ended his story. Ryoma was impressed to see that he had somehow eaten while he was talking, but didn't spray food everywhere like Momo did. Ryoma considered if it would be to weird if he asked Eiji-sempai to teach Momo-sempai how to do that.

"Do you have a way to get home?" Rinko asked them.

"Fujiko's sister is taking us, right?" Eiji said.

"Yes, she should be here soon." Fuji looked out the window. "I think that's her right now, actually."

"We should be going then... Thank you for having us, Echizen-san! I'm sorry we don't have time to help you clean up..."

"It's alright. You're guests after all. Ryoma, go send off your friends."

"Do I have to?"

"Yes."

"Fine..." Ryoma got out of his chair and went to the door with Karupin following him. He walked his sempai to the gate, saying a curt 'bye' before slamming it shut. He picked up Karupin and walked back to the house, not even waiting for his sempai's replies.

"O'chibi's so rude! What if that was actually a kidnapper and not your sister, Fujiko-chan?"

"I suppose we would have been kidnapped then, Eiji."

Oishi sighed. "Let's just get into the car already. This day was so tiring..."

"Yeah..." Eiji said. "I'm gonna go to bed early today...all that running across town...nyah..."

"Saa, let's go then."

:3

Ryoma yawned. He didn't get to do his homework earlier, and was hurrying to finish it. It wasn't hard, but there was just so _much_ of it. Karupin was already asleep, his soft breathing filling the room. He looked longingly at his bed. Just a few more problems...

---------------------------------

A/N: ...I feel like I'm not using enough details or something...and dialogue is hard for me to write with too many people:(

Here's a song Ryoma sings about Karupin I found on youtube:

http / www . youtube . com / watch?vNSt5sFrvdEM&moderelated&search

Take out the spaces...I'm not sure where to put them exactly, so sorry if there's too many;


	4. School

A/N: . I'm a week later than promised…sorry!! I went into some sort of a writing slump… v.v…think I'm still in the slump, but…

Disclaimer: I don't own tenipuri.

Blink

By m3owchan

Chapter 4- School

Ryoma groaned when he heard his alarm clock ring. He had managed to finish his homework but it had taken him half the night. There was also a heavy weight on his back that was cutting off his air supply. He looked over his shoulders to see Karupin, who appeared to still be asleep.

He sat up slowly, letting Karupin slide off his back with the blankets; trying not to disturb him. Karupin woke up anyways, as he always did around the same time as Ryoma.

Ryoma walked to the bathroom (still half asleep) to do his morning rituals. Karupin silently followed after him on all fours. He noticed his limbs weren't as balanced as before, but it was still harder to walk like a human for him. He had only been human for one day, after all.

Ryoma got a spare toothbrush out of the cabinet and handed it to him. Karupin stared at the toothbrush, examining it. It was most likely red, he noted, a color he couldn't see before. It was strange to him, this new color. It had also changed a lot of the colors he was use to seeing.

He had never known that so many of Ryoma's shirts had red in them, and there was that color that didn't look red, exactly, but was in Ryoma's eyes, turning them a different color than he was use to. It didn't look all that bad though; it actually seemed to bring out them more, blending with the different shades of green to make an even brighter color that made them shine and deepen at the same time.

There was another color he couldn't identify, which was his skin color. It was lighter than Ryoma's, but had the same colors. It had a lighter shade of red in it, but was basically the same white color it was before. He had been thinking about these differences a bit after he turned into a human. Not constantly, but he just noticed them in small differences, such as the toothbrush he was currently looking at.

He knew what the brush was for since he saw Ryoma using it before, and sometimes he got his own teeth brushed with ones specially made for cats. Ryoma squeezed some toothpaste onto his brush and handed the tube to Karupin. He watched him with half-lidded eyes as he brushed his teeth.

Karupin tried to mimic what Ryoma had did, softly squeezing the tube until some came out. He got it on the brush, but was hesitant to put it in his mouth. It smelled sweet and mint tasting, things he was unfamiliar with.

Ryoma rinsed out his mouth and kneeled in front of him. He took the toothpaste from Karupin, putting the cap back on and set it on the counter. Then he took Karupin's hand that had the brush in it and positioned it near his mouth. Karupin opened his mouth and let Ryoma help him brush his teeth.

Karupin was right that it was too minty. It made his tongue hide at the back of his mouth while he tried not to taste it. He could feel it burning his eyes even when he closed them.

"You'll get used to it." Ryoma grabbed a cup of water. "Here, rinse your mouth out and don't swallow any."

Karupin did as he was told, glad to have the strong flavor out of his mouth. He rinsed a few times more to get rid of the aftertaste that lingered too strongly in his mouth. Ryoma was walking out the door when Karupin asked,

"How do you use the bathroom?"

:3

After some explaining and a random potty-training book they found, they finally went downstairs. Ryoma made a face at the western breakfast that was set at the table. Karupin, never having had it before, thought it wasn't as bad as Ryoma made it out to be. Though he supposed he would rather have fish…

The spiky-haired guy arrived at the door the second Karupin had stabbed the fork into the egg (those were much easier to use than chopsticks). He remembered him as one of Ryoma's friends, but forgot what his name was. He watched as Ryoma gulped down his (second) glass of milk and quickly grabbed a piece of toast, running to the door.

"Bring the cat with you, seishounen!" He heard Oyaji say. Ryoma stumbled at the door.

"…_Huh?_"

:3

Ryoma actually didn't mind if Karupin attended school. He was just surprised at how soon it was decided. He thought that Karupin should've had more time to adjust to being human before going to school, if at all. He glanced at the administration papers as he put them into his bag. His mom must have filled them out otherwise they would be the unreadable scrawl of his dad's handwriting.

Actually getting there was the other problem. Ryoma knew that Momoshiro was probably the second-strongest person on their team, but riding one bike with three people and all their stuff would be a problem. They had tried it with Karupin hanging onto Ryoma's back, but they all fell off before Momoshiro started to pedal.

It finally worked out to Karupin sitting at the front of Momoshiro's bike, half-sitting in the basket. Seeing that they were now balanced, Momo rode as quickly as he could to school. Ryoma, thinking ahead, had lent Karupin his hat. They were already attracting enough attention with their three-person biking; cat ears would too much.

They arrived at the front gates the same time the school bell rang. Momoshiro practically crashed his bike into the rack, jolting them out of their places. He got off and ran to class while tossing Echizen his keys. He figured Ryoma would go hand in Karupin's registration papers, giving them an excuse to be late.

Ryoma scowled at Momoshiro's running figure, but went to lock the bike. It _was_ the easiest way to get home, after all. Karupin was standing idly by, recovering from the shock of almost being thrown off the bike.

Pocketing the keys, Ryoma picked up his bag and headed for the school. Karupin followed silently after him.

----

"Echizen Karupin desu." Karupin introduced himself.

The rest of the class stared. Ryoma sighed. They had met up with the principal and handed in the papers. There was the initial shock of Karupin removing his hat, but when the principal tried to touch them, Ryoma slapped his hands away and glared at him. He decided it was most likely a touchy subject and decided not to question on it.

He had told Karupin to buy the school uniform, and (luckily) assigned Karupin to Ryoma's classes. They had walked in the classroom in the middle of a lecture, Ryoma holding up the note before the teacher could accuse him of being late again. And now it had come to this.

"You're related to Echizen!?" Horio, as usual, was the first to speak.

"Yes…" Karupin said, trying to remember from where he recognized him.

"But you guys look nothing alike!" Horio squawked.

"…Adoption." Ryoma answered for him.

"And the ears! What's up with that?"

"…Genetic disorder."

"Really? That's--"

"Enough class, you may ask him after class." The teacher cut him off. He turned to the Echizens. "Go sit down and turn to page 64. Karupin can share books with someone until he gets some of his own."

Ryoma complied, sitting in a seat by the window. Karupin sat beside him. Ryoma took out his book, setting it between him and Karupin.

It wasn't that hard to ignore the stares of his classmates, but it was still annoying. Ryoma wondered how Karupin was doing since staring was just about the rudest thing you could do to a cat. He seemed to be faring well enough, trying to concentrate more on the book than anything else.

:3

Karupin was utterly relived when the lunch bell rang and Ryoma took him away from all the stares. The bells had surprised him at first, with all the loud ringing, but he quickly adjusted like he did to all the other strange human tendencies. It had sort of reminded him of when Oyaji rang the temple bells, so he didn't mind it as much.

They had went up some stairs that he vaguely remembered the last time he came here. He had tried his best to follow Ryoma's scent to try to find him, and ended up in trapped outside. Then there were those loud people that opened the door and called him a raccoon. He couldn't understand why when he _clearly_ was a cat. Maybe they were blind.

Ryoma closed the door to the roof and they sat down. He took out two bentos and handed one to Karupin. He was glad to find that there was fish in it, and ate hungrily, not having finished his breakfast before they left. Ryoma ate at a slightly slower pace, assured that there was no sempais there to steal food from him.

When they finished, Ryoma stretched out beneath the sun, planning on napping. He hoped there was enough time to catch up on a bit of sleep. He hadn't gotten nearly enough yesterday.

Karupin followed suit, lying down next to Ryoma. He rested his head on Ryoma's chest, pressing his ear against it so he could listen to the heartbeats and slow breathing. He yawned. It made him feel sleepy too. Karupin felt a hand gently petting his hair as he drifted off.

:3

Horio had immediately run after Echizen, wanting more answers from him. He bumped into Katsou and Kachirou along the way, making them all fall over in a heap on the floor.

Horio got up immediately, searching around for a trace of where Echizen went. "Ahh! I lost them!" he exclaimed.

"Lost who?" Kachirou asked as he helped Katsou up.

"Echizen!" Horio grabbed his head in his hands. "Ah! Where could he have gone?!"

"Um, Ryoma-kun goes to the roof during lunch sometimes," Kachirou offered.

"The roof! Why didn't I think of that? Come on, let's go!" Horio shouted, running towards the stairs. Katsou and Kachirou followed cautiously behind.

:3

Momoshiro was in the lunch line when he saw the ichinen trio run by.

"What was that all about?" he wondered, turning his attention back to the line. His eyes widened in realization after a second.

"Echizen!"

:3

"What are you doing, Horio?" Katsou asked as he watched him slowly open the door and peaked outside.

"Shhh!" Horio shushed him. "This takes lots of concentration!"

"…What does?" Kachirou asked, confused.

"So you guys were up here!" Momoshiro suddenly said from behind them.

"Ahh! Momo-chan-sempai! Don't do that!"

"Sorry, sorry. Are you looking for Echizen?"

"Um, yeah…how did you know, Momo-chan-sempai?"

"I'm your sempai, of course I'd know!"

The door suddenly opened completely, making them fall over. They looked up, to see Ryoma send a harsh glare at them. He stepped over them, carrying a sleeping Karupin out the door while closing it.

"R-Ryoma-kun can be pretty scary sometimes…" Kachirou stammered. Katsou nodded.

Horio protested and was about to go on a rant about how they shouldn't be afraid of someone in their own grade when Momoshiro realized they were locked out.

"Oi, Echizen! Let us in! You can't do this to your sempai, you just can't!"

:3

----------------------------

A/N: Sigh, this chapter didn't turn out as good as I wanted it too…

The link in the last chapter didn't work… so I'll type out the stuff:

http(colon)(slash)(slash)www(dot)youtube(dot)com(slash)watch?v(equalsign)NSt5sFrvdEM&mode(equalsign)related&search(equalsign)

And here's the website where I'm getting cat facts from (no, they're not made up) Anything that I've directly said about cats, such as the red color-blindness or their inability to taste sweet things are true…It's a really good website with detailed articles about cats, and a few other animals…go take a look! (You can also find the reason for my title there if you read around…)

http(colon)(slash)(slash)www(dot)messybeast(dot)com


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